About 18 months ago I asked myself, what was the best marketing skill of all to learn?
I got it! Content marketing! Valuable guides, articles, social media posts, blogs, podcasts, etc.
I thought, if I could master content, then my work will naturally attract followers interested in what I do AND spread itself through comments and shares. Simply do a high volume, see what works, refine and repeat.
So I created even more content and ended up with 40+ podcast episodes and 68 long-form articles which were promoted across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Indiehackers, Reddit, Medium, etc.
Since then, my little podcast was listened to thousands of times and articles the same.
But as you can guess, an ‘audience’ did not materialize.
People read and listened, but they didn’t respond, like, comment, etc. Despite spending hours on pieces, they weren’t shared.
I tried to fix this by getting better at the content promotion part, but it didn’t make a difference.
Reflecting on this now, I think I know the reason:
Content by itself isn’t the goal. That’s just noise. Connection is what I should be aiming for.
My friend recently summed up the idea recently like this: it’s better to have 500 people who know (and like you) then 50,000 people who follow you for memes.
This is probably why:
- I tend to remember more personable, emotive writers.
- Nobody remembers the last PDF lead magnet they downloaded.
- I can’t name a single HubSpot blog author…
- Pumping my LinkedIn or Twitter feed with teaching posts will usually be met with crickets.
- Few people want to be part of an ‘audience’.
I can see that content is still the vehicle for building connections with readers at scale, but it has to be done in the right way.
Superficial volume not required.
What do you think?